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Chapter Two: Building a Cult
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. Mark 16:15-16 Size One of the most important factors for a cult is how big the cult is. Do they have people in every continent, or just three people? Nearly every other factor is influenced by a cult's size is some way: If a cult has money or influence, well that has to come from somewhere. Strange religious rites require people, not just wearing robes and chanting, but to cover any non-religious responsibilities that might be interrupted by the stars aligning. If the cult has an Endowment, more people means more resources for production or more people studying that ancient text to find additional tricks. There are two ways to define size. The simplest is to pick a rough number: 10, 100, 1000? Some thought as to where the cultists live will help too, 1000 people living in a 1000 person town will be very different to 1000 people spread across the East Coast of America. The second way to define size is to think of it from the perspective of the story. Under this system there's really only three Sizes: *'Circle –' the cult is small enough that every member can be a full three dimensional character in the story. *'Cabal –' the cult has a significant presence in a single city or region, presumably the one where the story takes place, but nothing beyond that. *'Covenant –' the cult has a significant presence beyond a single city or region. At each size the relationship between the players and their cult changes, in a Circle they know every other member. If they need resources or assistance they can think about who is best suited to provide. In a Cabal the players probably know every single group (every Cell or Circle if you will) of their cult, they might have a reasonable idea of the cult's situation and direct requests to individual Circles. In a Covenant the players have no personal knowledge about the majority of the cult, it is a faceless mass which depending on the cult may send orders, resources or manpower to assist the players. Another important difference is that a fight involving a Circle or Cabal can involve the entire cult, but a Covenant rarely commits all it's resources meaning that when facing defeat the players often have a place to retreat to and a resource base to launch a counter attack. Managerial Style From the players perspective the managerial style of a cult is perhaps the single most important factor, for it defines how their characters will relate to their cult. In one cult the players may be given a loose rein and make moral decisions. In another the cult will have a formal doctrine and every member has to obey it, or at least be very good at covering their tracks. *'Hierarchical: '''The cult is organised in a top down fashion. At the top is upper management who set global goals. Below them is a layer of middle management, then front line management, and finally the people doing the actual work. In a well run cult the management is an elaborate machine for setting goals and removing obstacles to getting work done, in other cults it could be a morass of petty fiefdoms and politics. It could be a rigid bureaucracy with managers watching their subordinates like hawks, or it could use longer reigns where if the job gets done no one is likely to check how. *'Coalition: The cult is divided into a number of mostly independent units who are united by some common factor, such as worshipping the same deity. Individual groups may have radically different theologies and internal cultures. For all intents and purposes they are independent groups who share resources, information and support. It may be worth picking other managerial styles for individual groups. *'Glorious Leader: '''What the leader says happens. This style of cult is most common in Circles, and when the leader of the cult is the one and only member with genuine supernatural abilities. If a cult led by a glorious leader grows to big for one man's personal oversight it may become hierarchical instead. *'Echo Chamber: 'The cult isn't really organised or run by anyone, it just sort of happens. Something about the cult, perhaps it's deity, naturally draws in people who follow or are predisposed to follow the cult's doctrine and keeps them together. *'Inner and Outer Circles: 'Not so much a style in itself, but a variant that can be applied to other styles. In this the cult has an outer circle where the rank and file go, and a secretive inner circle or circles. The key here is that the inner circle is kept secret from the common member. At most they will be aware that there is a priesthood and accept the theological reason they know little about it, in other cases the cult may not have a clue who they really work for. ''Example cult: The Forbidden Apple is a small group led by a Witch who hopes to spread occult truths to people capable of “enlightenment”. She reveals magical secrets and sets tasks to further her followers development and they trust unconditionally that her orders make sense to an enlightened mind. This is an example of a cult led by a Glorious Leader Organizational Style While less important than the managerial style, the organisational style says a lot about a cult. How a cult portrays itself can reveal details of the cult's self image and how society will react to it. Some of the possible organisational styles include: *'''Unorganised: Rare for Covenants but common for smaller cults. The cult is organised on an ad-hoc basis by it's members and has little in the way of formal doctrine or infrastructure. Cabals often use a variant where tightly connected Circles have only loose ties between them. *'Gated Community:' The cult is organised as a residential community or communities, it may be an actual village built exclusively for the cult or just a neighbourhood that cultists try to move into. What keeps this cult separate from a full on Jonestown is that members enjoy a shared culture but do not let it overcome the practical realities of everyday life or sacrifice their social connections to friends or family outside the cult. *'Inbred Hicks:' The cult actually resembles the popular image of a cult. Members are socially, and probably geographically, isolated. Every aspect of a cultist's life is shaped by the cult and it's doctrine. If a visitor gets close enough to observe the cult's unique culture, practices and even any supernatural elements will be plain to see. *'Paramilitary Organisation:' The cult is designed for maximum efficiency at violence. The cult may be terrorists, an actual army unit or paramilitary contractor that was converted, even hunters with a zealous anti-monster dogma. Regardless of it's doctrine expect well armed members, safehouses, supply caches and a practical, violent approach to matters of conflict. *'Secret Society:' The cult tries very hard to pretend it doesn’t even exist. In their daily lives members have little connection to one another, if they practice any doctrine it's done in secret. This may event extend to face concealing masks, robes or symbolic names and essentially ensuring cultists do not know who else is a member. This anonymity is the cult's greatest strength and such cults often try to spread there tentacles into positions of power. *'Legitimate Religion:' The cult mimics the trappings of a legitimate religion, whether or not it actually claims to be a sect of a respected faith . Such cults are usually public about their existence, membership, and at least some of their beliefs and practices. Expect the cult to meet in buildings that look like a church or a temple and hold prayer services. Many of these cults can use cultural respect for faith as a smokescreen; Depending on how depraved their practices are, how well hidden their rutals are, and how good their lawyers are. *'Legitimate Organisation:' The cult is, or is hidden behind, a legally incorporated business, non-profit, or charitable origination. The cult will have to be mindful of the many laws and regulations surrounding the corporate world but in turn the cult will have a large and justifiable source of income and a framework to use it. *'Social Club:' The cult publicly acknowledges that it is a group, but denies this group has any purpose, temporal or religious, beyond being a group of like minded people who enjoy each others company. Such cults are barely above being Unorganised but usually have at least some infrastructure such as a clubhouse in the cult's name. Example cult: The Duckling's Easter society is a group of writers that believe they live in a world governed by stories. Every few months members go to a retreat and act as though they were popular character archetypes, they believe that after they have become the archetype in a safe controlled environment they will be able to return to regular life with the skills, and fates, common to their chosen archetype. This is an example of a cult organised like a Social Club. The Holy Pyramid In some cases the organizational style alone is all you need, but when the players are going to be interacting frequently with the same cult or perhaps even joining it then it can be worth designing the cult in detail. Consider going as far as to draw a chart showing the lines of official authority, unofficial authority, mind control, loyalty and attempted power plays between members, individual cells and external pawns. When the players strike at a key target you'll be able to plot the effects that much easier and without worrying about being unfair. Creed One of the most defining aspects of a cult is it's Creed. What does the cult worship? God, Spirits, their beloved leader, squirming primordial horrors from the bottom of the ocean? *'Agnostic: '''The cult does not worship a god, or if it does it's god is too abstract to provide a concrete set of rules. In short the cult is free from dogma or commandments and may respond to problems or opportunities in whichever way it wishes. *'Sect:' Even mainstream, presumably peaceful faiths can go wrong with the right psycho at the helm. This kind of cult is an example, an extremist and fundamentalist strain of a normal religion that has lost its screws at some point, becoming a group of dangerous fanatics that do not tolerate dissent...but often, ignore their own hypocrisy. *'Pagan:' What most people think of when the word "cult" is brandied about, these minority religions worship weird, often frightening gods and tenets, and if they were ever inspired by a major religion, they have long since mutated into an unrecognizable form. Some are harmless, hippies who just want to explore the world opened up by psychoactive drugs and those who can say Odin was a divine alien with a straight face. Others worship eldrich horrors or god's who's evil is all to human. *'Mystery:' Mystery cults don't worship the article of their faith, but they do follow it with zeal that can rival any of the other sect's on this list. In short a mystery cult understands, or at least believes it understands, some of the secret truths in the world of darkness. The cult's dogma and rituals arise as a consequence of this understanding. *'Secular:' Just because a cult isn't faithful to higher (or lower) powers doesn't mean it isn't a cult-an old boy's network or an exclusive club can have just as much of a ritualized approach to its members or vicious to those that are not the cult. These networks, pyramid schemes, or secret fraternities exist wherever humans (or otherwise) believe they can benefit from them and have the power and influence make it happen. ''Example cult:A cult of board middle class socialites and faux-intellectuals in Baden-Württemberg is led by a Vampire; he preaches that mankind's natural place is in the middle of the food chain and that society was wrong to try and climb the chain. The cult is little more than a group of people of people who go to the woods to be hunted by Vampires, they feel that returning to their natural place gives their lives the meaning modern society lacks. In reality they're being manipulated with the Dread Power ecstasy. This rather suspect belief, and the rituals that are derived from it, show that this is a mystery cult. Goal Every cult has a goal, many have more than one or a set of real goals hidden behind a more acceptable set of false goals. Most goals perused by one cult or another can be divided into Temporal goals and Religious goals. Temporal goals are any goal that exists because it provides a practical benefit to the cult as a whole, it's members or perhaps just it's leaders. Making lots of money, or perhaps transferring lots of money from the cultists to the leader's Swiss bank account, is a worryingly common temporal goal for a cult. Other goals can include acquiring a harem of devoted cultists, acquiring practical supernatural abilities, acquiring immortality, or acquiring status and power. Less selfish goals could include fighting monsters or saving souls, depending on the cult it might not actually be any more moral than pure greed. Religious goals cover any goal that is for the benefit of the god, or whatever the cult worships. If a cult dedicates itself to placing a statue of their god on the stop of every skyscraper in New York that's a religious goal. Religious goals are often more esoteric and, frankly, weirder than temporal goals and that's just the things gods ask for. The things mad cult leaders believe their god is asking for can get even weirder. There is often some overlap between temporal and religious goals. A common combination is perusing a religious goal because the god will reward the cult for their service. Other times the object of the cult's worship is as much of a living person as the cultists themselves; it is probably best to divide their personal goals into temporal or religious based on how unusual their requests are. Example cult: Hathor's Harlots are a group of hippies who believe the world would be a better place if men and women (or men and men, or women and women) stopped judging each other and just let the love flow. To that end they've sworn to sleep with anyone who asks unless they feel it's actually dangerous. Honestly, it would be harmless if they weren't an unintentional magnet for unhealthy individuals, and if they knew enough basic theology to not put Hera on the arbitrary list of love deity’s they pray to. Their nebulous goal is to improve culture and increase the amount of love in the world. Membership Sidebar: cults and Codes If one thing defines a cults above all else, it is their strong internal culture. A simple way to represent this is to give all members of a cult a shared version of The Code. The cult's training, perhaps even brainwashing, serves instead of trigger points. If you want to reinforce this theme even further you could say that the social penalties for the Code apply to everyone who doesn’t have a matching code, which is probably everyone outside the cult. If the cult isn't rigid enough for everyone to have an identical code, substitute themes instead. By definition a cult needs members, and where it finds those members will have a significant impact on both the cult's abilities and internal culture. A cult of occult academics who travelled far to study at the feet of an enlightened master will expect to be taught secret knowledge that holds up to analysis. A cult that raised it's members from birth may have little trouble convincing them of any dogma they wish. Here is a selection of the possible sources for new members. Many cults will draw from multiple sources: *'The Chosen:' The cult does not pick these people, their deity does. Or perhaps they read portents in stars. This could mean that the cult unerringly is drawn to people who will willingly join and fit well within the cult; but it could just as easily lead to the cult making hard sales pitches to people who are quite rightly freaked out, if not attempting abduction and brainwashing. It is also worth thinking what criteria the deity uses when choosing potential recruits: The gifted, people who won't be missed, green eyed redheads, are the portents even real? *'The Next Generation:' The cult's members are raised from birth to believe in the cult's theology and goals. Young children are adaptable and perhaps the easiest to mould into the cult's way of thinking, but in many countries the government takes child welfare seriously which may require the cult to hide the children, put on a façade of normality or defend themselves by acquiring political control. *'Spiritualistic Experimenters:' Many people have an innate desire to find a sort of spiritual fulfilment in their lives. If they do not find it among their parents faith and live in a tolerant nation they are likely to explore alternatives. Some may legitimately find fulfilment among the cult, but it cannot be denied that many people begin their search after leaving for collage. Isolated from their social support they make easy prey for cult recruiters. *'Occultists:' Not everyone fears the shadows. Some people light candles and seek out the truth hidden in darkness. Cults claim to know those truths and want to share the good word, it seems like a perfect match. Only occultists are usually the careful sorts who check their facts, if they don't they rarely last long, and that includes thinking carefully about what the cult is selling. It is worth saying that a lot of cults are started by occultists. They discover some secret truth, ancient horror or discover a forgotten god's long lost testament; then they either end up enlightened, enslaved or tempted by the offer. *'The Wealthy:' A large number of cults exist to gain wealth and luxury for their founder, where better to get this than from the people who already have it? Not many cults have the ability to grab a multi-millionare from their bed and brainwash them. Multi-millionares are often defended, but a life of wealth and luxury leaves plenty of free time to think about spiritual matters, or talk about them with a silver tongued cult recruiter. Most cults that target the wealthy have a strong mask of legitimacy or a lot of power (political or supernatural) to get away with targeting high profile targets. *'The Mentally Ill:' It's sad but undeniable that many people who suffer from a mental illness can be more easily brainwashed by a cult. Especially if that mental illness has isolated them from regular society. Other cults have different reasons for recruiting from the mental hospital, a cult that worships an eldrich abomination from beyond the stars or primordial horror from beneath the sea may find that a mental illness helps put cultists on the same wavelength as their deity. They might even be mad because they witnessed the deity. *'Our Sort of People:' Some cults have a favoured criteria for membership that flows naturally from the cult's theology. A cult that worships Mars may draw heavily from soldiers and other fighter types. One that follows a strange maddening but beautiful song from beneath the ocean may favour musicians. As a category this is too broad to generalise, but too common to overlook. *'Whoever is Around:' If a cult is strongly tied to a single location, be it a sacred grove or a Jonestown hidden far from the eyes of the law they may be uneasy with non-believers nearby. Some cults will try to recruit them, others will drive them off. *'The Gifted:' The cult favours recruiting people with a certain kind of supernatural power. The gifted might comprise most of the members or be an exulted or mistreated minority. People with supernatural powers can be especially hard to recruit if the same powers the that attracts the cult protect the gifted, a mind reader could see through a recruiters bullshit and it's hard to kidnap a prophet who knows your plans before you do. However many supernatural powers can raise deep questions of identity which can be exploited by a canny cult, even against he gifted's best interest. Example cult: The Singularity of Humanity Ascendant grew out of a single autistic and telepathic woman in Victorian Britain. Her inability to understand social subtitles caused the nameless founder (all cult members forsake names) no end of grief until her third eye opened. In time she became convinced that all human suffering stems from the metaphorical barriers between non-psychic minds and gathered telepaths around her in the hope that one day all could share her gift. Recently, after decades of experimentation, the cult has perfected their techniques to the point they can create permanent telepathic links and hope that with enough telepaths all of humanity can be joined in a single telepathic network. To this end the cult recruits any telepath they can. They also welcome regular people into their network, especially if they have autism or Asperger's. Mundane Abilities If the players are going to be opposing a cult, it stands to reason that the cult will do it's very best to fight back. Therefore it is worth discussing how the cult operates *'Legally:' Centuries of cultural development have biased humanity to respect religion, to the point that respect for religious freedoms is enshrined in many laws. Cults can take advantage of this, and other well intentioned laws, to silence legitimate criticism or even deter investigation into genuine crimes. *'Socially:' With this cult is all about the connections. The cult might have politicians or officials on the roster who can promote the cult's interest. Other cults may have a stranglehold on the culture, they're able to exert enormous yet subtle pressures to reward faith and excommunicate those who won't toe the line. *'Financially:' Some cults desire and seek out wealthy, others accumulate it naturally as their membership expands. In the right hands money can be as dangerous as supernatural powers, a wealthy cult can hire investigators or cats-paws to hound their foes, or engage in more direct financial warfare through undercutting or buying out their enemies. *'Violently:' And sometimes cults just pull out weapons, if they think they can get away with it or are crazy enough not to care. Violent action requires both skill and zeal, though a surplus of one can sometimes make up for a deficit in the other. Few cults limit themselves to just one of these methods, and a covenant will assuredly have at least some talent in all of them. Rather than picking one, rate your cult in each area. Example cult: The Church by the Wall consists of businessmen men who worship the almighty dollar. Ok, it's really a group of businessmen who like to dress in robes, get drunk, play ping pong and make underhanded business deals. They're skilled at financial matters, and employ a lot of lawyers (though since they're not even close to a recognised religion quite a few options are closed) but their ability to fight is minimal. Resource Base A cult that merely meets in the forest once a week doesn't need much money, but larger or more ambitious cults do. Some cults have genuine occult power which often requires more exotic resources and the ones that don't might still desire odd sacraments for their rituals. Where does this come from? * Their members: The simplest way for a cult to make money is to have their members turn up to the regular job and give a percentage of the paycheck. * Patronage: An entire cult might be part of or allied to a wealthier organisation who gives it funding. * Crime: A cult full of fanatics can get up to no end of mischief, from theft to running protection rackets on entire towns. Example cult: The Church of Latter Day Druids is funded by the Forestry Service under the pseudonym of Mistletoe Landscaping Ltd. As far as the Forestry Service is concerned if they charge a premium and skim a little off the top to fund golden sickle production that's the price of getting the very best grounds tenders on the market. Knowledge It's worth taking a moment to consider just how much a cult knows about the secrets hiding in the shadows. A cult formed by a pathological narcissist for access to money, adoration and sexual gratification might not be aware that monsters exist. Another ancient cult may have centuries of knowledge archived in secret libraries. Patrons can be fonts of genuine lore, don't assume that because a cult is young and small it can't know the secret truths. A knowledgeable vampire, witch or (especially) a god can easily teach people. Of course, they may be lying. Example Cult: A group called the Chess Club (formally an actual chess club) meets in the basement of a middle school in an All-American mid-west town. They found an antiquated SUN Workstation that's running a telnet connection to what appears to be an old BBS. Only the BBS is hosted inside NORAD's cheyenne mountain complex 25 years in the future, the last bastion of the US government. Their most frequent contact, "General Bishop", won their trust with accurate lottery numbers and is now preparing them to prevent the conquest of Earth by a brilliant madman and his robotic army. The Chess Club are incredibly well informed, with access to both details about the supernatural and confidential military secrets. Factual details like typical Werewolf hunting strategies tend to be accurate, but the timeline of future events leading to world conquest. It's all lies. '' Endowments Most cult's don't have any supernatural resources, but for the ones they do it's necessary to think about what they can do and why they can do it. Here's a few possible sources that might power a cult's Endowment: *'Resources:' The simplest source of Endowments suggests the cult has possession of something supernatural: A warehouse full of relics, a sacred grove, a map to a goblin market. This allows the cult to perform supernatural feats. The Ageis Kai Doru are an example of a Conspiracy who's Endowment comes from resources. *'Knowledge:' The cult knows something, and it's secrets allow the cult to perform supernatural feats. Knowledge can overlap with resources, especially if the knowledge is how to craft relics. A cult might train all it's members in their secrets or just a select few, especially if that few can provide Endowments to the other members. The Ascending One, Cheiron Group, and Task Force: Valkyrie are all examples of Conspiracies who's Endowment comes from Knowledge. *'Monsters:' The cult has monsters in it's membership, leaders, or under some manner of control. This doesn’t provide an Endowment per say, rather the monsters can be built with Dread Powers as normal and use them on the cult's behalf. However the Lucifuge is an example of a cult who's Endowment comes from monsters (well, debatabley) so using an Endowment works fine if it fits. *'Patrons:' The cult's worships something, and that something has the power to provide an Endowment. This can overlap with Knowledge, if secret names or memorising lists of offerings are important, but blessings are set apart by the patron's active intervention. The Malleus Maleficarum claim that their Endowment comes from blessings. *'Batshit Insanity:' Some cults develop Endowments that any occultist would struggle to explain. They pray to gods who don't exist, and their prayers are answered. They perform rituals that go against all occult theory, and they work. They even deny obvious empirical facts, and it doesn’t matter. It's unknown if there's one common cause like the power of belief or if each cult is doing something different; no one really has a clue what's happening, and frankly not many people want to know. ''Example cult: Landslide.org is a blogging website that's sharing and friend oriented design naturally creates self reinforcing cultures. It has become popular with various unhealthy groups such as pro anorexia activists, people who celebrate identity dissociative disorder, and a myriad of others drawn from the depths of the internet. Lately they have begun copying language and concepts from civil rights, feminism, trans-activism, and social sciences; portraying disagreement with their self-assessments or criticisms of their lifestyle as oppression. While most members are your run of the mill whining-on-the-internet types the echo chamber has caused a minority to start displaying supernatural abilities consistent with their (often factually wrong) diagnosis or worldview. Clearly this is a cult who's powers come from Batshit Insanity. Sidebar – Can I Use This For Hunter Organisations? Yes.